When providing automated telephony services, business enterprises commonly use interactive voice response (IVR) systems to allow customers to request information and/or to contact representatives through menu-driven options. IVR systems typically output audio prompts and may employ automatic speech recognition (ASR) and/or dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) tone recognition to interpret voice and/or telephone keypad inputs from users. In some cases, an IVR system may support automated telephony services provided to customers when dialing the main telephone number of a business and may be designed to respond to user inputs by providing information and/or performing actions without involving human representatives of the business.
Conventional IVR systems, however, are not designed for interaction with customers who may be deaf, hearing impaired, or speech impaired. To provide information and services to customers with hearing and/or speech impairments, a business typically dedicates a separate telephone number for receiving calls from a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD) which also may be referred to as a teletypewriter (TTY) or text telephone (TT). The TDD may communicate over a telephony network in accordance with one or more TDD protocols and may include a keyboard and a display screen for typing and rendering text-based messages. A call placed by a TDD user to the dedicated TDD telephone number of a business may be answered by a compatible TDD communications terminal enabling the TDD user to exchange text-based messages with a human representative of the business.
In general, text-based messaging is unavailable when a TDD telephony call is placed to a standard telephone terminal or voice telephone number unless the TDD user subscribes to a relay service. For example, the TDD user may subscribe to a service such that a human relay operator joins calls of the TDD user to relay text-to-voice and voice-to-text messages between the TDD user and the other party.
Automated telephony services provide benefits such as reducing costs for business enterprises and increasing customer convenience. Accordingly, improved systems and techniques are needed for providing automated telephony services to users who may be deaf, hearing impaired, or speech impaired.